By IANS,
Lucknow : The Allahabad High Court Wednesday took Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) Vikram Singh to task for failing to carry out its order to reinstate some 20,000 constables who were summarily dismissed by the Mayawati government.
While directing Singh to carry out the court’s order before May 27, a single judge bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath warned that in case of failure to do so, the DGP should appear before the court to face charges of contempt.
The police constables concerned were recruited during the previous government of Mayawati’s sworn political foe Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. No sooner did Mayawati, chief of the Bahujan Samaj Party, become chief minister in 2007 than a high level probe exposed large scale irregularities in the recruitment. The services of the fresh recruits were consequently terminated.
Some of the victims moved the Allahabad High Court, which upheld their plea and directed the state government to reinstate all the dismissed constables.
The state government’s appeal before the Supreme Court in the matter was dismissed following which the high court issued yet another order reiterating its earlier directive.
When the state government chose to still sit over the order, the high court summoned DGP Singh in a contempt petition moved by the victims.